The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Friday, November 3, 2017

New Jersey has an enemy population. And it poses an ongoing terror threat.

Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbek Muslim terrorist who killed 8 in a Car Jihad attack, at one point used a Paterson, NJ address. His truck had been rented in Jersey City.

Paterson has been nicknamed "Paterstine" due to its large Muslim settler community with noted pro-terrorist sympathies. The PLO terror flag flies over Paterson's City Hall. And Muslims there celebrated on 9/11.

Tom Penicaro: "I worked for PSEG in Clifton on the Paterson boarder and I witnessed it firsthand. They were celebrating in the streets cheering and stomping on the flag. I am a Marine and I remember very very clearly because I was so pissed I wanted to engage them with a bat I had in my van."Walter Emiliantsev: "I lived in NJ at the time on Demott Ave., Clifton! When I tried to go to Paterson to my brother in laws shop, I usually took Main Ave. There were so many people dancing on Main, I couldn't get through! I KNOW what I saw!"Finally, we know that six of the 9-11 hijackers lived in Paterson, NJ, and they used the computers of a nearby campus in planning their attacks.

The Uzbek Muslim settler terrorist had also apparently rented his truck in Jersey City. That was where even more notable Muslim terrorist celebrations took place.

"When I saw they were happy, I was pissed," said Ron Knight, 56, a Tonnele Avenue resident who said he heard cries of "Allahu Akbar" as he shouldered his way through a crowd of 15 to 20 people on John F. Kennedy Boulevard that morning.A retired police captain, Peter Gallagher, said he cleared a rooftop celebration of 20 to 30 people at 6 Tonnele Ave., a four-story apartment building with an unobstructed view of Lower Manhattan, in the hours after the second tower fell."Some men were dancing, some held kids on their shoulders," said Gallagher, then a sergeant. "The women were shouting in Arabic and keening in the high-pitched wail of Arabic fashion. They were told to go back to their apartments since a crowd of non-Muslims was gathering on the sidewalk below and we feared for their safety."Carlos Ferran, 60, who lives in the same building as Knight, said he was on his way to a liquor store to buy beer when he came across the gathering on the sidewalk."Some of them had their hands in the air," Ferran said. "They were happy."

And Jersey City was also a terror hub for the original World Trade Center bombers. The van used in that attack was rented in Jersey City. Just like the truck in the current attack.

New Jersey has an enemy population. And it poses an ongoing terror threat.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/268285/muslim-terrorist-who-killed-8-near-911-memorial-daniel-greenfield Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

In the Mueller probe and the incessant probes against Netanyahu, we see the new face of the Left.

There are stunning parallels between US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of alleged collusion between US President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia and the ongoing criminal probes against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara.

Monday, after a weekend filled with speculation due to an illegal media leak regarding sealed grand jury indictments, Mueller and his team indicted two former Trump campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, for offenses related to their business and lobbying actions allegedly carried out between 2006 and 2014.

Mueller also announced that George Papadopoulos, a junior campaign aide, pled guilty to lying to investigators about a meeting he tried to arrange between then candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As commentators across the political spectrum have noted, none of the charges against Manafort and Gates have anything to do with Trump’s presidential campaign.

As for Papadopoulos, his story exculpates rather than implicates Trump’s campaign in collusion with Russia.

Not only did Papadopoulos’s boss on the campaign reject his offer to arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin, the actions described in his indictment demonstrate that the Trump campaign had no significant ties to the Russian regime.

And yet, despite the apparent absence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, no one expects Mueller to close down shop. To the contrary.

The Manafort and Gates indictments and the Papadopoulos plea tell us that Mueller has abandoned the stated purpose of his investigation. Having found no evidence of collusion – criminal or otherwise – between the Trump campaign and Russia, he has decided to investigate the business dealings of Trump and his associates going back decades.

Mueller’s move demonstrates that he does not view it as his job to incriminate or exonerate Trump regarding alleged collusion with Russia. Indeed, he doesn’t view it as his responsibility to investigate Russian involvement in the 2016 elections at all.

If he thought that was his job, then Mueller would not be expanding his writ to include alleged crimes carried out by Trump’s associates that any US attorney could be investigating. He would be expanding his probe to include the growing mountain of evidence of collusion on the part of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and their attorneys, as well as Mueller’s friend and successor as FBI director, James Comey, with foreign agents, including Russian government officials, during and in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Mueller’s apparent refusal to follow the evidence where it leads him regarding Russian involvement in the 2016 elections and his decision instead to investigate any and all suspicions against Trump and his associates whenever the events in question may have taken place tells us that he views himself as a hunter, not an investigator. His prey is Trump.

Mueller will continue to hunt Trump until one of three things happen.

Mueller may eventually find something – anything – to charge Trump with. Such a finding will precipitate an impeachment hearing in Congress that could lead to Trump’s removal from office.

His hunt may find nothing against Trump, but just as it netted Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos this week, it may bring down other people related to Trump. At a minimum, his continued probe will keep those close to Trump under continuous investigation. In this case, Mueller’s probe will dominate Trump’s presidency and make it impossible for Trump to govern in accordance with the agenda he was elected to advance.

The third possible outcome is that Trump fires Mueller and ends his probe or that Congress defunds his probe or limits its duration. Such moves would require the unanimous support of congressional and Senate Republicans, which currently is not on offer.

The threat that Mueller’s investigation represents to US democracy couldn’t be clearer.

By making it clear through their actions to date that they will not stop their investigation until they get Trump, Mueller and his associates apparently view their investigation as a means to either overturn the election results or render them irrelevant. If Trump is either pushed out of office or denied the ability to govern in accordance with the agenda he ran on, then Mueller will have achieved that goal.

This then brings us to Netanyahu.

Netanyahu and the political Right won a massive electoral victory in 2015. For the first time in many years, the Right won indisputably. There are no coalition partners who place appeasing the PLO at the top of their governing agenda or even in the middle of their agenda.

Netanyahu and his political camp’s victory came as a shock to Israel’s elites. Led by the media, which was itself an adjunct of the anti-Netanyahu campaign, and assisted by the Obama administration, which siphoned US government funds into anti-Netanyahu political groups, Israel’s elites were flummoxed by the election results.

Shortly after the election, the anti-Netanyahu media, with the support of police investigators, went on a hunt to find something – anything – to force Netanyahu from office. In the end, all they could come up with were two otherwise absurd allegations.

First, that Netanyahu received too many gifts from his wealthy friends. Specifically, he allegedly received too many cigars from his friend Arnon Milchen. Second, Netanyahu taped himself discussing with his nemesis, Yediot Aharonot publisher Arnon Mozes, the possibility of winning less adversarial coverage from Yediot Ahronot in exchange for lobbying Israel Hayom, which is owned by Netanyahu’s friend Sheldon Adelson, to cut back its circulation and so diminish its competitive edge over Yediot. This discussion, which came to nothing, was discovered by police investigators during their investigation of Netanyahu’s former chief of staff for alleged crimes unrelated to Netanyahu.

If the allegations were directed against any other politician, there is no doubt that they would not have led to police investigations. The late president Shimon Peres’s legendary use of the public trough to pay for his lavish parties and lifestyle were never the subject of investigation. Former prime minister Ehud Barak never faced investigation over his allegedly sketchy business dealings or his deeply suspect campaign financing operations. Former prime minister Ehud Olmert was never investigated for the massive collection of expensive pens that he was showered with by “friends” during his tenure in government.

And none the 43 lawmakers who voted in favor of a bill backed by Mozes to shut down Israel Hayom were ever investigated for their votes.

But with Netanyahu, with the prodding and active support of the media the police are pursuing multi-million shekel investigations around the world to find and interrogate Netanyahu’s friends and ask them about their gifts to him. Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich has hired Lior Horev, one of Israel’s top anti-Netanyahu political consultants, to serve as the police’s public relations representative.

As for the probes against Sara Netanyahu, every day the public is treated to yet more salacious, unsubstantiated tales of her alleged abuse of workers at the Prime Minister’s Residence.

While Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit did not initiate the probes against Netanyahu, he has done nothing to stop them. This despite their demonstrably prejudicial nature. Mandelblit is a product of the system that has turned the police, media and state prosecution into a political party united in their common goal of hunting the political Right. As a result, he can be expected to go along with whatever they do. If the police recommend indicting Netanyahu, Mandelblit can be counted on to dutifully indict him, even though the acts he is suspected of committing are not crimes.

Given the current dynamic, the only way for Netanyahu not be forced from office for actions that aren’t even criminal is for his political associates to rein in the out of control police and state prosecution by limiting their authority. So far, the media have cowed them into inaction.

In the Mueller probe and the incessant probes against Netanyahu we see the new face of the Left. Unable to win elections, they exploit their control over the bureaucracy and media to overturn election results.

There can be no greater threat to the health of a liberal democracy than that.

Two things must happen for this situation to be corrected.

First, we must recognize what is happening and what it means for our systems of governance. Second, lawmakers in Congress and the Knesset alike need to stand up to the media and the legal fraternities and bravely restore the power to govern to those in whom the public has vested it.

Caroline Glick is the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project and the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz: Israel's position is clear: Smuggling arms to Hezbollah is a red line.

The site of the alleged Israeli airstrike south of Homs

An Israeli airstrike targeted a weapons factory south of the Syrian city of Homs late Wednesday night, Syrian and Lebanese media reported, adding the Syrian army fired anti-aircraft missiles at the Israeli fighter jets but missed. The report was not corroborated by any official Israeli source.

According to Sky News, four Israeli raids targeted an ammunition manufacturing plant in the industrial area of Hissia, 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Homs and 112 kilometers (70 miles) north of Damascus.

An unnamed Syrian military official was quoted by local media as saying the target was a copper factory, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based organization that reports on the civil war raging in the country, said the airstrike had targeted a military installation.

According to foreign media reports, the strike was the latest in a string of similar moves that have targeted Hezbollah-bound weapon shipments.

Israeli officials have expressed concern over Iran's growing influence in Syria, where Tehran-backed groups have played a critical role fighting in support of President Bashar Assad during the conflict that erupted in 2011.

Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said Thursday that Israel would not allow weapon deliveries to Hezbollah.

"I can't, of course, relate to reports about the IDF's attack in Syria, but regardless, Israel's position is clear: Smuggling arms to Hezbollah is a red line for us," he told Army Radio.

"Israel has acted in the past and it will act in the future, according to available intelligence, to prevent arms smuggling to Hezbollah," he said, adding that "I think the other side also understands this clearly, it understands that past strikes, for which we did take responsibility, were in line with this policy and these red lines."

'We're ready for any scenario'

The strike has raised security tensions on Israel's northern borders at a time when tensions on the Israel-Gaza Strip border are also climbing.

On Monday the Israeli military discovered and destroyed an Islamic Jihad terror tunnel dug from Gaza into Israel. The terrorist group vowed to avenge the nine operatives killed in the blast, and a senior official said the group's forces have been instructed "to be on high alert. Any understandings with the Zionist enemy are revoked."

A senior defense official with the IDF's Southern Command said Wednesday that "this is still an ongoing operation and we still have decisions to make. Islamic Jihad was dealt a serious blow and it deserved it. We won't apologize for it. We're ready for any scenario."

The official said that while no special instructions were issued to residents of the border-adjacent communities, the military was taking the Islamic Jihad's threats seriously as "they're struggling to contain this event because of the high number fatalities. Rockets or mortar shells can start flying here at any minute.

"Islamic Jihad has retaliation capabilities. They're still not done recovering bodies from the rubble. Their dilemma is when and how to retaliate, but on the other hand, the further we move from the incident the greater the chance they won't react," he said.

According to the official, it was possible that the lack of immediate retaliation by Islamic Jihad over the tunnel's destruction stemmed from Hamas' strategic preference to prioritize the rapprochement with Fatah. Still, it is possible that Iran might try to sabotage the Palestinian unity deal by pushing Islamic Jihad to retaliate.

"We are prepared for multiple scenarios, including the possibility that they [Islamic Jihad] would target Judea and Samaria," he said. "If they make a mistake and strike, they will be made to pay a price. Right now, they're focused on how they can redeem their failures and that may prompt reckless actions."

The IDF has elevated the alert level on the Gaza border, as well as in several other locations. As a precaution, it was also decided to limit troop movements in certain areas near the security fence.

The tunnel's destruction has been hailed as a significant achievement by the Defense Ministry, IDF and the Israeli military industries, which together have developed tunnel-detection technologies that complement the defense establishment's new operational perception.

"The discovery of the tunnel was not accidental. There's a system in place, the consolidation of several capabilities into one system that we didn’t have before," the official said. "We have significantly improved the ability to monitor depths of between 60 and 70 meters (200-230 feet) and it changed the situation on the ground. We're making progress in neutralizing the tunnel threat. In the past, Hamas was more advanced than us, but we've narrowed the gaps and we're on our way to circumvent the enemy."

The official said that a team of experts – engineers, geologists and intelligence analysts – is involved in tunnel detection efforts. The team "decides whether there are suspicious developments underground. Anyone who is in the subterranean zone is endangering themselves. Anyone digging a tunnel in Gaza should know that they're placing themselves at risk."

Another defense official said, "We caught Hamas and Islamic Jihad with their pants down. They didn't expect it, and the fact that we knew exactly where and how deep the tunnel was only proved that we're on the right path to developing technology to eradicate tunnels.

"The strategy formulated to counter the tunnel threat includes a wall, technology and intelligence. The technology has proved itself to be effective because we reached the most accurate level possible to neutralize the tunnel."

He stressed that the Islamic Jihad's tunnel had yet to become operational, saying, "We know that the tunnel's construction began months ago. It was not operational, it didn’t have an exit shaft on the Israeli side of the border, and it was not a threat to [border-adjacent] communities."

All
the Allied countries supported the idea of ​​creating a Jewish state
on the territory where no one doubted the claims of the Jews to the
land.

On November 2, 1917, exactly 100 years ago, British foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour sent a private letter to Lord Walter Rothschild, the second Baron Rothschild. The letter was written not by Balfour, but by other ministers in Lloyd George's Cabinet – Lord Alfred Milner and Leopold Amery. In history, this letter became known as the Balfour Declaration.

Both Balfour and Milner were true Britons. Rothschild was proud of being a Jew. Amery was a Jew who carefully concealed his Jewish origins. What united this quartet?

All of them were, of course, to some degree, Zionists, but only to the extent that such was in the interests of the British Empire. Otherwise, the Declaration would never have happened.

The main thing is that they were all members of the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom.

Lord Arthur Balfour became prime minister of Great Britain in 1902. And until 1911, he was the official leader of the Conservative Party. Balfour served as the first lord of the admiralty at the beginning of the First World War, and then as the minister of foreign affairs. He worked in the conservative government of Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, then as a representative of the conservative majority in the coalition government of Prime Minister Lloyd George, and later in the conservative government of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

Leopold Amery was a conservative member of Parliament from 1911 to 1945. It was he who proposed the idea of the creation of the Jewish Legion of volunteers in the British Army during the First World War to Vladimir Jabotinsky. His résumé noted him the first lord of the admiralty, the holder of an uncompromising position on National Socialist Germany, and the all-round supporter of Winston Churchill.

Lord Alfred Milner was one of the most influential Conservatives in the government of Lloyd George. He was one of the five members of the War Cabinet. For several decades, he played a decisive role in formulating the domestic and foreign policies of the British Empire. After his death in 1925, his place in world politics was taken by a Conservative of an even larger caliber: Winston Churchill.

Lord Walter Rothschild descended from the famous family of Rothschild bankers. He was a Conservative member of the British Parliament from 1899 to 1910. Many years before receiving the letter from Balfour, Baron Rothschild withdrew from political and banking activities and became a famous zoologist. Nevertheless, he was the one chosen by the British government to disclose its decision to allocate part of the territory of the Ottoman Empire to the Jewish state.

The decisive meeting of the Cabinet was held on October 31, 1917. Most Cabinet members supported the idea of the Declaration. The recognized world leader of the Zionists, future first president of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, was informed immediately after the vote as he waited for a decision in the lobby. But the Cabinet chose a very English method to publicize its historic decision – in the form of a private letter to the leader of the British Jewish diaspora, Walter Rothschild.

The leader of the opposition to the Declaration was Edwin Montagu – one of the few Jews in the British government, and one of the most radical left-wing politicians in the United Kingdom. Montague did not take part in the meeting on October 31 because he was traveling to India to assume the post of secretary of state in the colonial administration. Perhaps Edwin Montagu is a founding father of a strange leftist cult of Jewish anti-Zionists, which exists in many countries to this day.

Of course, the British government had no right to dispose of the lands of the Ottoman Empire in 1917. The war was still going on, and the official division of the territory of the Ottoman Empire had not yet occurred. But the British were in a hurry, and for a good reason. They forestalled a similar declaration from the German Cabinet by just a few months (hat tip: Daniel Kluger).

Despite this, all the Allied countries supported the idea of ​​creating a Jewish state on the territory where no one doubted the claims of the Jews to the land.

The Balfour Declaration was approved by the Allies at a conference in San Remo (Article 4) in April 1920. Then, in August of the same year, it was included in the text of the Treaty of Sevres (Article 95) between the victorious Allies and the defeated Ottoman Empire. The Balfour Declaration received full international legal status after it was included in the text of the decision of the League of Nations on the British Mandate in 1922.

Although the United States was not a member of the League of Nations at that time, the 67th U.S. Congress in 1922 adopted the Lodge-Fisch resolution (both Republicans) proclaiming support for the Balfour Declaration, and President Harding (also a Republican) signed it. The resolution was so popular that both the House of Representatives and the Senate adopted it by a simple voice vote. Republicans in the 67th Congress had a significant advantage: they occupied about two thirds of all the seats.

In 1932, marking the fifteenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Republican President Herbert Hoover reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the principles of creating a national home for Jews in the Holy Land.

What remains puzzling in this historical account is how this idea, proposed by the Zionists and backed for decades by right-wing politicians, led to the creation of the leftist and virtually socialist state of Israel in 1948.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/11/the_conservatives_who_resurrected_israel.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Violent crime, including murder, rape and physical assault, is running rampant in German asylum shelters

German authorities have justified their failure to inform the public about the scale of the problem by citing the privacy rights of the criminal offenders.

Experts have long warned that the practice of housing migrants from different ethnic and religious backgrounds in tight accommodations is the ideal breeding ground for violence.

"A maintenance man who worked in a refugee shelter reported 'mafia-like' conditions. Refugees were required to pay for access to the electrical sockets there." — Der Tagesspiegel.

Violent crime, including murder, rape and physical assault, is running rampant in German asylum shelters, according to a leaked intelligence report. German authorities, who appear powerless to stem the rising tide of violence, have justified their failure to inform the public about the scale of the problem by citing the privacy rights of the criminal offenders.

The report, leaked to the newspaper Bild, was prepared for Markus Ulbig, the interior minister of Saxony, where more than 40,000 migrants are being housed in refugee shelters. According to the report, there were ten murders or attempted murders at Saxon migrant shelters in 2016, as well as 960 physical assaults, 671 cases of grievous bodily injury, seven rapes, 10 sexual assaults of children and 268 cases of drug trafficking. The report also cited hundreds of incidents of theft, coercion, arson, brawls and attacks on police officers.

The violence at Saxon migrant shelters continued during the first six months of 2017: there were more than 500 physical assaults, several homicides and hundreds of reported thefts.

Experts have long warned that the practice of housing migrants from different ethnic and religious backgrounds in tight accommodations is the ideal breeding ground for violence.

In Germany as a whole, around 40,000 crimes — nearly 150 each day — were reported in refugee shelters during the first nine months of 2016, according to another leaked report by the Federal Criminal Police (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA). These crimes included 17,200 physical assaults, 6,500 thefts, 510 sexual assaults and 139 murders or attempted murders.

Observers say this is just the tip of the iceberg, as most crimes go unreported out of a fear of revenge. The BKA does not make public its data about migrant shelter criminality and there have been no additional leaks of such information. Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests that migrant-on-migrant crime is endemic across Germany.

Migrant men exercise at the shelter where they live in Sarstedt, Germany, on November 17, 2015. (Photo by Alexander Koerner/Getty Images)

In Baden-Württemberg, 87% of all migrants who were victims of crimes in 2016 were attacked by other migrants, according to official statistics.

In Berlin, police recorded more than 2,000 physical assaults at migrant shelters during 2016, in addition to 800 thefts, 86 rapes and three homicides. Der Tagesspiegelreported:

"The fact that there is an accumulation of criminal offenses in refugee shelters is not surprising. Cramped spaces, wearisome waiting, constant noise and unrest and an uncertain future generates aggression. There are also ethnic and religious conflicts. Many Syrians cannot deal with Afghans, many Serbs do not deal with Iraqis, many Muslims reject Christians, many Sunnis do not want to deal with Shiites. A maintenance man who worked in a refugee shelter reported 'mafia-like' conditions. Refugees were required to pay for access to the electrical sockets there."

In Hamburg, 219 sexual assaults against women and children at migrant shelters were reported there during the first six months of 2017, compared to 200 such assaults reported during the same period in 2016.

In Schleswig-Holstein, rival gangs of migrants competing for the drug trade at migrant shelters in Lübeck and other cities have attacked each other in more than a dozen mass brawls. The gangs are said to involve migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, as well as from North Africa.

In Bavaria, a 41-year-old Afghan migrant at a refugee shelter in Arnschwang stabbed to death an eight-year-old boy from Russia, apparently because the boy was too noisy. It later emerged that a Bavarian court had warned that the Afghan, who had previously been arrested for arson, posed a threat to others. Bavarian officials had ignored that warning and placed him at the refugee shelter where the boy was staying with his mother. The murder prompted calls for the 6,500 single mothers at migrant shelters in Bavaria to be housed in separate units.

Also in Bavaria, a 47-year-old migrant from Kazakhstan at a refugee shelter in Eggenfelden castrated a 28-year-old Ukrainian migrant, who subsequently bled to death. It later emerged that the Kazakh man had been raped by the Ukrainian man, who was aided and abetted by a group of migrants from Chechnya.

In Lower Saxony, a 26-year-old migrant from Sudan sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl from Serbia at a refugee shelter in Braunschweig. More than a hundred Serbians attempted to deliver street justice before police intervened with pepper spray.

In North Rhine-Westphalia, a mass brawl at a migrant shelter in Dortmund resulted in the stabbing of a 28-year-old migrant. When police attempted to arrest the 19-year-old perpetrator, they were attacked by a mob of more than 40 migrants. Police used dogs to restore order. In Cologne, a mass brawl between groups of African migrants resulted in the stabbing death of a 22-year-old man. At an asylum shelter in Espelkamp, a 32-year-old migrant from Lebanon stabbed another migrant, who bled to death at the scene. The Lebanese man was arrested and then released; the public prosecutor said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the man.

Back in Saxony, when Bild asked why such crimes, which are rarely reported by the police or media, are being kept secret, an interior ministry spokesperson replied that publishing such information was not in the public interest: "The facts which the investigative authorities deem appropriate for public knowledge depend on the circumstances of the individual case."

The interior ministry said that the high levels of violence were not surprising:

"In general, long-term accommodation of many people in small spaces, such as first-time reception facilities, can lead to temporary, exceptional mental states which can lead to physical disputes in individual cases. Such an effect is further enhanced by heterogeneous ethnic and cultural backgrounds."

The interior ministry added that some of the violence could be prevented by providing migrants with "a sufficient supply of leisure activities."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11264/germany-refugee-shelters Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Here is true and direct Russian interference in the American scene

The
independent Russian TV channel Rain TV interviewed a former employee of
The Internet Research Agency in Saint Petersburg, also known as the
"troll factory." In the interview, he explained how the "troll
factory's" foreign department works, recounting: "There was a kind of
dismissive attitude toward the Russia department [of the agency] – they
are bots and trolls, while we shape the agenda for the foreigners; we
influence them."

He noted that the agency had a document of guidelines, titled
"Strategy," which was followed by the employees. "You had to know all
the major problems of the United States. Taxes, the problem of gays,
sexual minorities, weapons," he explained. He added: "We couldn't write
about Russia at all. Neither Russia nor Putin could be mentioned.
Because Americans don't talk about that. Basically, they don't care
about Russia or Putin. Our goal was not to turn the Americans towards
Russia. Our goal was to set them against their own government, to
provoke unrest and discontent."

Rain TV Talks To A Former "Troll Factory" Employee Who Engaged In "Opinion-Changing" Abroad

"The subject
of the 'Russian trail' in the U.S. election has once again made the
headlines in the recent weeks. At the end of September, Facebook
informed the U.S. Congress about fake accounts and purchases of
political ads in the interests of Russia during the 2016 presidential
campaign. Later, it became clear that around $100,000 had been spent to
buy ads in Russian interests on Google platforms during that campaign.
Twitter supplied the Senate Intelligence Committee with information
about 201 accounts that could have been used by Russia to interfere with
the election. And CNN reported about Russia's attempts to influence the
U.S. presidential elections through the game Pokemon Go. A number of
publications again mentioned The Internet Research Agency from Saint
Petersburg, also known as the 'troll factory' (nicknamed thus for its
attempts to influence public opinion with the help of fake accounts in
social networks). Rain TV managed to talk to a former agency employee
who engaged in 'opinion-changing' abroad.

The Interview – 'They Asked Me About Rain TV And Navalny'

"At first I
thought that the selection was really tough, and I got in by some
miracle. During the interview, they asked me about Rain TV and
[opposition leader Alexey] Navalny. I said I didn't go to rallies,
didn't donate money to Navalny, read mostly Putin and [prominent
pro-Kremlin Russian journalist Vladimir] Solovyov. There were mostly
people from the Saint Petersburg University there: from the philology
department, the department of international relations, orientalists,
lots of guys from the department of journalism.

The Foreign Department – 'We Shape The Agenda For The Foreigners, We Influence Them'

"I think that at first the number of posts was not the most important thing, they tried to do high quality work. There
was a kind of dismissive attitude toward the Russian Department – they
are bots and trolls, while we shape the agenda for the foreigners, we
influence them. Our goal was to influence opinions, to provoke
discussion. It was not only arguments like: Obama is an ape, Putin is
great. This was not acceptable; you could even be fined for something
like that.

"In the
English Department, the accountability is different: you had to measure
reaction there. Reaction is how many likes you received – a comment was
supposed to provoke discussion. There was a document there called
'Strategy.' You had to know all the major problems of the United States.
Taxes, the problem of gays, sexual minorities, weapons.

What
a Troll Does – 'Our Goal Was Not To Turn The Americans Towards Russia.
Our Goal Was To Set Them Against Their Own Government'

"You were
given a list of news media that you had to monitor and comment on. New
York Times, Washington Post — it could reach up to tens of thousands
comments there. You had to look through them all and understand the
overall trends – what people wrote and argued about. And then you had to
jump into the dispute yourself in order to inflame it, to try and rock
the boat.

"The most popular topics were the right to carry guns and gays.
When it's about gays, we almost always had to lead to issues of
religion. Americans are very religious, especially those who frequent
forums and news sites, and post comments. You had to write that sodomy
was a sin. It would always bring a couple dozen likes.

"We couldn't write about Russia at all. Neither Russia nor Putin could be mentioned. Because Americans don't talk about that. Basically, they don't care about Russia or Putin. Our
goal was not to turn the Americans towards Russia. Our goal was to set
them against their own government, to provoke unrest and discontent, to
lower Obama's rating.

What A Troll Cannot Do – 'If You Were Caught Openly Using Your Russian IP, You Would Get A Dressing-Down'

"You were
not allowed to work with foreign mass media without a VPN [virtual
private network, a tool that helps users stay anonymous online], and if
you were caught openly using your Russian IP, you would get a
dressing-down.

"One man
got a good tongue-lashing for taking a photo in the building. As you
know, a photo contains metadata, and one can trace the geo-location.
Apparently, everyone's social media were monitored.

American Politics – 'Hillary Clinton – Only Bad Things About Her, She Was To Be Quashed'

"Hillary
Clinton – only bad things about her, she was to be quashed. We wrote
about the leaked e-mails, about how rich she was. The main message was:
aren't you tired of the Clintons, my fellow Americans, how many have you
had already? Corruption scandals are from the same category.

English Lessons – 'They Made Us Watch House of Cards... On A Voluntary-Compulsory Basis'

"At first
they made us watch the TV show 'House Of Cards' in English on a
voluntary-compulsory basis. We had English lessons: we discussed each
other's comments, what mistakes we had made, how not to write... 'Here
present perfect should be used, and here past simple, and here an
apostrophe, and why did you put a comma here, they don't use commas in
the same way as we do.' In fact, we taught each other."

[1]
The interview was conducted by Yevgenia Kotlyar. The article was
originally titled: "'Our Goal Was... To Provoke Unrest': An Interview
With A Former Employee Of The 'Troll Factory' In St Petersburg";
Tvrain.ru, October 14, 2017.

MEMRISource: https://www.memri.org/reports/former-employee-saint-petersburg-troll-factory-our-goal-was-set-americans-against-their-own Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

A disturbing trend continues to spread

Employees within the Democratic National Committee are looking for new employees in the Technology Department. However, the DNC is apparently not interested in your resume if you happen to be a white male.
In an email issued to DNC insiders on Monday, Data Services manager Madeleine Leader announced that the Technology Department is looking to fill several positions and asked interested parties to forward the openings to their colleagues.

She included the following caveat:

I personally would prefer that you not forward to cisgender straight white males, since they're already in the majority.

Her honesty may cost her dearly. Instead of quietly deep-sixing résumés from white males unless they are pretending to be women, as no doubt would have happened, she had to make the illegal policy a public matter. The DNC still hopes to capture some votes from white males, so it has been forced to react, as Olivia Beavers reports in The Hill:

The DNC denied that the email was "authorized" in any way by the organization.
"The email in question was not authorized by the DNC nor was it authorized by senior leadership," DNC spokesman Michael Tyler said in a statement to The Hill.
"All hiring decisions at the DNC are made consistent with the DNC's commitment to equal employment opportunity and hiring an inclusive and talented staff that reflects the coalition of the Democratic Party, because our diversity is our greatest strength."

The fact that Ms. Leader felt comfortable voicing bias against white males tells us that this is an everyday, common sentiment in her political circle.

A similar mindset is evident in this shocking incident in Canada, as reported by Hank Berrien of the Daily Wire:

As she has done before, last month, Lido Pimienta, a Colombian-Canadian singer, asked audience members of color to move to the front and white members to move to the back. Unlike other times she has made that request, some white members refused to act in accordance with her request, including a white female volunteer who was reportedly there to photograph the show.

The photographer and an unknown number of other Caucasians refused to be discriminated against, just as Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat at the front of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, when blacks were relegated to the back. For that defiance in challenging racial segregation, Ms. Parks became an immortal hero.

Not so for the whites who stood on the same principle in Halifax.

The festival's organizers called the photographer's response "aggressive and racist," even as it admitted that "details have not been disclosed." The festival organizers backed the segregationist move by the singer and apologized to her, as Billboard reported:

"We will not accept this behavior and neither should you," the statement reads in part. "Be responsible for your friends – talk to them and support them as they move towards unpacking their racism. People of Color deserve safe spaces and it is your responsibility to help. It is also ours."

Lido Pimienta, for her part, offered an excuse that would have been equally applicable to Rosa Parks.

"I never asked white folks to leave my show, I would never do that," Pimienta said in an email Q&A with Billboard about the incident. "I never ask men to leave my show, I ask them to share the space in a more significant manner as an act of love and solidarity with people who, outside of the music show bubble, have to constantly justify their existence to the world."

Rosa Parks was not asked to leave the bus – just to move to the back.

Lido Pimienta at a performance in Toronto (Canadian Press).

Here is the groveling statement that the Halifax festival posted to Facebook:

Dear attendees, fans, artists, staff, volunteers, and folks otherwise involved in the Halifax Pop Explosion. On Thursday, October 19 at the Marquee Club, a white HPX volunteer along with several other white people in the audience reacted to Lido Pimienta inviting "brown girls to the front" of the venue with overt racism. This volunteer was removed by Lido herself. They have since received notification from the festival that they are no longer welcome to volunteer with us.
We will not accept this behaviour and neither should you. Be responsible for your friends – talk to them and support them as they move towards unpacking their racism. People of Colour deserve safe spaces and it is your responsibility to help. It is also ours.
The Halifax Pop Explosion has worked hard in the past year to learn what embracing anti-racism and actively being inclusive of People of Colour and 2SLGBTQ+ folks entails. We take responsibility for missed opportunities to actively support POC artists this year and promise to build meaningful infrastructures within our festival through which to better support these communities in the future.
Halifax Pop Explosion is committing to providing our team with anti-oppression and anti-racism training. Additionally, we will be working with local organizations over the next year to create a list of local resources for our community. We also want to make this list available to those who create unsafe and uncomfortable space at our shows and venues by demonstrating racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and other discriminatory behaviours, so they too can begin unpacking their discriminatory behaviour. As a festival, we will also spend the next several months addressing ways we can make our festival spaces safer for women, POC, and 2SLGBTQ+ folks.
To Lido Pimienta: we are sorry that one of our volunteers interrupted your art, your show, and your audience by being aggressive and racist. We have so much respect for the art and music you create and the space you make for women, people of colour, transgender, and non-binary people. The way you interact with the world acts and provides a thoughtful example. You are a role model to us and many people in our community. We see it. We feel it. We hope you will work with us again.
To the POC in the audience on Thursday night: we are sorry your night was interrupted, and perhaps ruined, by one of our volunteers. We are going to try our best as a festival to create ways to make our spaces safer and more accessible for you. We hope we can rebuild some trust and that you will come back to our shows.
Thanks everyone for reading. We are fielding many discussions already. If you would like to make your voice heard in these discussions, please don't hesitate to contact the organization directly by emailing talkback@halifaxpopexplosion.com. We are listening.
- Georgie Dudka, on behalf of the Board of Directors for Halifax Pop Explosion

The Democratic Party today is divided over whether it wants to focus on the economy or identity

In less than a week, Democrats will mark a gloomy anniversary: the election of Donald Trump and defeat of Hillary Clinton.

Would it surprise you that Clinton's defeat is still being debated a year removed from the event? Are you aware that there is a civil war underway not only to explain Hillary's loss, but to decide which direction the Democrats will go to win in 2020?

You can be excused if you missed all this. The press isn't covering it, preferring to chase Russians around Washington rather than concentrate on perhaps the most impactful story of the year. Left-wing Democrats are at war with radical left-wing Democrats. Upon the outcome will hinge how competitive the party will be in the 2018 midterms as well as the 2020 presidential election.

The left wing blames Hillary's loss on her refusal to talk about the economy in the final days of the race and her lack of appeal to white working-class voters. The radical left blames her loss on not being...well, radical enough.

The problem for Democrats is that the farther left Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren push the party, the farther away they get from appealing to the white working class who turned out in droves for Donald Trump and were decisive in several states.

Stanley Greenberg, a Bill Clinton pollster from 1992 and longtime Democratic strategist, laid out the battle lines for the New Yorker:

"The Democratic Party today is divided over whether it wants to focus on the economy or identity," Greenberg said when we talked. That is, as he pointed out, just what the Clinton campaign was fighting about a year ago. Greenberg and others who came out of the Bill Clinton era—like the former President himself—had never really let go of the economy-first mantra that got them to the White House in a different time, and they felt that there was a generational conflict with the Obama operatives who held sway over Hillary Clinton's 2016 strategy. It was a fight that dogged the Clinton campaign all the way until its final days, when Greenberg and his allies inside the campaign pushed unsuccessfully to close with a focus on her plans for the economy.

"The caricature of this debate is, Bill Clinton says you have a problem and the numbers people say you don't," Jake Sullivan, who served as Clinton's top policy adviser for the campaign after working with her closely at the Obama State Department, recalled. But it wasn't that Hillary Clinton's team disagreed over the problem, he insisted, just over what to do about it: "Everybody recognized we had a huge working-class, non-college white issue. The question was, How do you add up to victory? Do you attack it head-on or by compensating elsewhere? That was the fundamental strategic debate."

And it still is.

"Identity" is shorthand for all the wacky social issues near and dear to Democrat's hearts. The Clinton campaign chose to try to goose turnout from its core constituencies: the young, minorities, organized labor, etc. The campaign made a conscious decision to ignore the white working class in favor of blacks, Hispanics, single women, and gays, in numbers that matched the Obama coalition.

Black turnout actually fell for the first time in 20 years, and, as usual, Hispanic turnout disappointed. The Clintonistas never came close to overcoming their antagonizing blue-collar whites.

What's fascinating is that it looks as though the Democrats are going to make the same mistakes all over again. Instead of talking about improving the economy, they want to talk about opposing Trump. If they did it rationally and within reason, they might actually gain some ground. But their irrational, over-the-top, hysterically exaggerated reaction to Trump personally and his policies will almost certainly make a Trump victory in 2020 more probable. Millions of Americans do not view Trump the way that Democrats do and are getting angry about what they see as unjustified, unhinged criticism.

The Democrats will easily have as many candidates in 2020 as the GOP did in 2016. But with the Warren-Sanders wing of the party holding sway in the primaries, it isn't likely that they will nominate someone who could defeat Trump.

Some Democrats are waking up to that reality and sounding the alarm. But no one is listening.

Rick MoranSource: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/11/lost_in_news_on_russia_the_full_blown_democratic_civil_war.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

By twisting a legitimate topic—the Balfour Declaration—into
anti-Zionist, anti-Israel propaganda, Khalidi distorted the past in
order to influence the present.

[Text differs from the Algemeiner's.]

Rashid Khalidi

Last month former PLO spokesmanRashid Khalidi,
now Columbia University's Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies,
renewed his PLO bona fides by marking the centennial of the Balfour Declaration with the lecture
"The Balfour Declaration from the Perspective of its Victims." It was
the first in the series "Palestine/Israel: 100, 70, 50" at New York
University's Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, marking
three anniversaries Palestinians abhor and Israelis celebrate.

The
lecture was held in the magnificent Richard Ettinghausen Library, which
showcases a wall of Islamic mosaics. The room was packed to capacity
with about eighty-five people, including faculty and graduate students,
some lining the circular staircase and filling every inch of standing
room.

Helga
Tawil-Souri, director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center, introduced Khalidi
in glowing terms as "the premier Palestinian public intellectual,"
noting that as an op-ed contributor he is "the only Palestinian with a direct line to the New York Times (NYT)."

Helga Tawil-Souri

Upon
taking the podium, Khalidi qualified her statement, adding, to raucous
laughter, that he wished he did have a direct pipeline to the NYT,
because "they wouldn't have Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss writing for
them regularly if I did." It just so happens that Stephens and Weiss,
recent NYT hires, are both strongly pro-Israel.

Khalidi
argued that the Balfour Declaration "amounted to a declaration of war
by the British Empire on the indigenous population of the land it was
promising to the Jewish people as a national homeland." It "launched a
century-long assault on the Palestinians aimed at implanting and
fostering this national homeland, later the state of Israel, at their
expense," he asserted.

Predictably,
Khalidi limited the "indigenous population" to Arabs and ignored the
Jewish people's historical claim to the land as recognized in the
Balfour Declaration. Instead, he maintained "the Zionist Movement was a
colonialist enterprise in search of a metropolitan sponsor" that was
"implanting" and "fostering" the Jewish people "at the expense of the
Palestinians."

Khalidi's terminology reflected his past as a PLO propagandist. His use of "indigenous" echoed the fabricatedclaims
of the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s Mahmoud Abbas that the Palestinians
are descended from the Canaanites, who predated the ancient Hebrews.
Similarly, his term "implanting" mirrored PA political commentator Fathi Buzia's allegation that Britain "creat[ed] and implant[ed] a fabricated, thieving entity upon the Palestinian land" and PA school textbooks, which refer to Israel "as an imperial colonial implant."

The
lecture epitomized the politicization of contemporary Middle East
studies: by twisting a legitimate topic—the Balfour Declaration—into
anti-Zionist, anti-Israel propaganda, Khalidi distorted the past in
order to influence the present. His ahistorical claim that the Jewish
people are not the indigenous population of Israel is a transparent
effort to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state. There should be no room
in academe for such hucksterism masquerading as scholarship.

Mara Schiffren, a Campus Watch Fellow, has a Ph.D. from Harvard University in the Study of Religion.